“Lake Song” by The Decemberists

"Lake Song" is a Colin Meloy song, words and music, from What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, the Decemberists' seventh studio album, released in 2015. The record borrows its name from a line of "12/17/12", a track named for the date of Barack Obama's speech after the Sandy Hook shooting that sets Meloy's mixed feelings about the tragedy against his happy home life.

Tucker Martine produced "Lake Song" with the band, recorded it and mixed it, with Michael Finn assisting on the engineering. Meloy sings lead, and Laura Veirs adds background vocals. The album mostly won critics over: The New York Times heard pop concision and maturity in it, though Pitchfork found it overlong.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.